


Finer Things

by Fontainebleau



Series: See Me, Feel Me [2]
Category: The Magnificent Seven (2016)
Genre: M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-23
Updated: 2016-12-23
Packaged: 2018-09-11 10:11:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8975374
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fontainebleau/pseuds/Fontainebleau
Summary: Goodnight's life is lacking in flavour.





	

Goodnight pushes his fork through the food on his plate. It’s nothing special, pork and beans: hot, filling, bland. No one else is complaining, certainly not Billy who’s eating beside him with his usual concentration. ‘Gumbo,’ says Goodnight, ‘rich, thick and spicy, different flavour in every bite. Crawfish, proper sauces with peppers and garlic and herbs. Flavours to bring your tongue alive, make eating worthwhile. Not this shovel-it-down-taste-be-damned stuff.’

‘So you always say,’ says Billy, ‘but do we find ourselves moving in the direction of Louisiana?’

Goodnight shoves the plate away and swirls his glass with an equal lack of enthusiasm. ‘And what I wouldn’t give for a decent whisky – now down in Kentucky they make proper whisky, filter it so it’s mellow and smooth. Dances on the palate.’ He sighs. ‘You know what they put in this? Tobacco juice and gunpowder.’ 

Billy goes on eating, neat in this as everything else, giving the food his full attention. He never leaves a scrap on his plate, wipes it clean with his last crust of bread, but he doesn’t seem to appreciate or savour his food: Goodnight’s never heard him express a preference or a dislike. He drinks good and bad liquor indifferently, eats whatever’s in front of him, lets Goodnight do the choosing. Not that there’s much choice to be had in the kind of place they fetch up: fancy restaurants are few out here, and money, as ever, tight. 

‘Are you going to finish that?’

‘Please, be my guest.’ Back when they met Goodnight was drinking more than he ate and at first he hesitated to offer an unfinished meal to his new companion, fearing it might seem insulting, but Billy simply picked up his plate and cleaned that too. By now it’s become a habit.

‘I suppose I must resign myself to a life of soulless eating.’

‘Only you could make a drama out of dinner.’

‘Can I be blamed for having an appetite for the finer things in life, cher?’ He drains his glass with a theatrical wince, but nevertheless reaches for the bottle to refill it.

‘You must be permanently disappointed, living the life we do.’

‘With you? Never.’

‘Your tastes, so elevated.’

‘Ah, but you’re one of the finer things I appreciate, Billy,’ says Goodnight. ‘You’re a work of art, haven’t I ever told you that?’

Billy snorts and reaches for the bottle himself. ‘I’m not imaginary, like your Cajun food and Kentucky whisky, Goody. I’m just part of the disappointing everyday.’

\--

Come morning they’re moving on first thing, but as they near the town’s limit Billy suddenly pulls up his horse, says, ‘Catch you up,’ and turns back. Goodnight is never sure whether this indicates a last-minute throat-cutting or a forgotten shaving brush and knows better than to ask, so he slows his mount to a walk, idling along. After a mile or so he hears Billy come trotting up behind. ‘All set?’ he asks, and gets a curt nod.

The landscape they’re travelling through is not exactly flowing with milk and honey; it’s scrubby and windscoured, the air dry in the throat and a fine dust kicking up under the horses’ hooves. At this time of year most creeks have run dry and it’s going to be hard finding what scarce water there is. The heat builds, bringing biting insects, and by midday Goodnight’s torturing himself again. ‘Watermelon, cold and sweet. Or peaches, ripe and melting and running with juice. Limes and mint.’

Billy scratches at the back of his neck and resettles his hat. ‘What we have is lukewarm water, thorn bushes and lizards.’ 

‘A man can dream, can’t he?’

Billy shakes his head; he plucks a few leaves from a shrub as he passes and folds them into a bundle to chew. ‘You take what you can get, Goody.’ 

\--

When they stop for the night Billy says briefly, ‘Fresh meat,’ and disappears, leaving Goodnight to tend to the horses and set up camp. He’s coaxing a fire along when Billy returns a little while later carrying a plump mottled bird. He plucks and guts it efficiently, then hands it to Goodnight to spit over the flames; he picks up two handfuls of dust to rub his hands clean of blood and feathers and wipes them on his shirt. 

After so much salt pork the idea of fresh-roasted meat is irresistible, and Goodnight takes his time over cooking, turning the fowl to make sure it’s cooked evenly and crisped; Billy waits patiently, feeding the fire with branches. When it’s ready Goodnight splits it and bites eagerly into his own share. It’s fine – succulent and gamey, running with fat; he wipes a trail of grease from his beard and asks, ‘Now that’s something worth eating, ain’t it?’ And indeed Billy, usually so fastidious in his habits, is tearing into the meat, licking the fat which coats his lips, fingers gleaming with it, sucking on the bones.

Once they’re done, Goodnight settles back for a smoke, but before he can light up Billy gets up again to rummage in the pack and brings out, of all things, an orange. He produces a knife and settles back against a rock, then pauses, sets both knife and orange down again, unfastens his gloves, peels them off and sets them aside. He picks the orange up and halves it, but doesn’t offer to share it; instead he cuts it into quarters, takes one and bites down on it, sucking at the pulp, juice beading on his moustache and running down his chin. It’s a rivetingly messy performance, and Goodnight can’t tear his gaze away: Billy grinds his teeth into the flesh, pulling the strands through his teeth, working each quarter down to the rind. His hands are glistening with juice to the wrists, and Goodnight’s own fingers twitch reflexively at the thought of the oozing stickiness. When he’s done with the last quarter Billy tosses the rinds into the fire, swipes at his chin and comes to stand over Goodnight.

He takes a moment to tug the leather tie and let his hair fall loose, then drops to his knees on Goodnight’s lap. Two sticky hands take hold of his face. ‘Want something worth tasting?’ A wet fragrant mouth descends on his. 

Sticky-sweet is what he’s expecting, and at first Goodnight is overwhelmed by the sharp perfume of the fruit, but as he licks at Billy’s mouth other tastes start prickling on his palate: the rich fatty tang of meat, cut with the slightest astringent hint of herbs. He lifts Billy’s chin so he can lick down his neck and feels the tremor of his laugh in his throat as he chases the rivulets of sweetness down to his collar over a salty layer of sweat. The juice of the orange has traced paler streaks in the grittiness of the day’s dust, and Goodnight feels it under his tongue, sweet and ashy together, sucking at the skin to extract the complexity of it. 

He kisses him again, hot and sugary and oily, then seizes a hand to draw his tongue across the palm, musty with old sweat where it’s been inside a glove all day, dirt ground in along the creases in his skin. Goodnight takes those beautiful fingers into his mouth one by one and works his tongue along and between them, tasting grease from the meat, a fainter residue of blood and more sparkling dust. He runs a fingernail across his teeth to work the fragments loose from underneath it: tiny particles of grit, shreds of orange, a filament of feather. Billy sits above him, watching as he concentrates on each individual sensation, and when he’s finished Goodnight tugs him down again by his shirt to lick along his jawline. Somehow the clinging juice has even got into Billy’s hair, and he sucks a last echo of orange from the strand which falls across his face, along with traces of woodsmoke and tobacco.

He’s running his tongue across Billy’s arm, caught up in pure sensation, strong and bitter, gritty and slick, ashy and sour, when a voice in his ear asks, ‘Find enough to your taste down here in the dirt with me?’

‘All and more,’ says Goodnight shakily.

Billy looks down at him. ‘It’s never going to be the kind of fancy life you talk about, you know. It’s going to be cheap whisky and cornbread all the way. Ordinary.’

Goodnight takes hold of his arms. ‘Billy, you are the least ordinary person I have ever encountered, and you give me all I could ever want.’

‘Dirt and all?’ asks Billy, rubbing up against him.

Goodnight rolls them over and rests his chin on Billy’s filthy shirt. ‘Let’s see now. _I believe in the flesh and the appetites, Seeing, hearing and feeling are miracles, and each part and tag of you is a miracle_.’

‘Only you, Goody.’

He begins unbuttoning the shirt. ‘Let me demonstrate.’


End file.
